Margo MacDonald was the
charismatic face of the SNP in the 1970s whose fervent socialism led to
splits with her own party.

Margo MacDonald who has died aged 70, was the larger-than-life face of
Scottish nationalism, the winner of a sensational by-election at Govan
in 1973, an inaugural member of the Scottish Parliament and the
political and marital partner of Jim Sillars, who quit Labour to found
his own party before also winning Govan for the SNP.

Margo MacDonald was living proof of the party’s fractiousness. Convinced
that nationalism was as much about personal liberty as freedom for the
Scottish nation, she twice left the party — under duress in 1982 when
its leaders lost patience with her Left-wing 79 Group; and again before
the 2003 Holyrood elections, sitting for her final two terms as an
Independent.

Margo MacDonald was uncomfortably far to the Left for a party
establishment she branded “tartan Tories”, but the SNP found it hard to
live without her charisma from the moment in November 1973 when she
captured solidly Labour Govan with a majority of 571.

Her tabloid image as a glamorous 29-year-old publican’s wife (her first
husband, Peter, was licensee of the Hoolet’s Nest at Blantyre) did her
no harm against a lacklustre opponent. But while her fervour and good
looks made her a natural for television, she was serious about her
politics and resented being called a blonde bombshell.

The inadequacies of Labour’s Harry Selby, a hairdresser, could not alone
explain the collapse of its vote. The novelty of a forceful woman
candidate in a working-class Glasgow seat was a factor. So, too, was the
widespread belief that, while Edward Heath’s government had been
disastrous for Clydeside, a tired Labour Party had little to offer.

Yet the result also reflected a growing local militancy stemming from
the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders’ work-in, and an upsurge of pressure for
independence that caught Labour unawares. The publication in
mid-campaign of the Kilbrandon Report recommending a Scottish Assembly,
and Labour’s lukewarm response, was just the boost the SNP needed.

Margo MacDonald spent barely two months in the Commons before Heath
called — and lost — a snap election. In that time she raised the
standard of an independent Scotland drawing strength from North Sea oil
revenues, capturing more headlines back home. The February 1974 election
was bitter for her, but sweet for her party: boundary changes gave Selby
his revenge by 543 votes, but the SNP gained six other seats, causing
panic in both main parties.

Labour made a painful U-turn over devolution in time for a further
election that October; Margo fought Govan again, but the margin widened.
As the SNP’s senior vice-chairman, she urged the party Leftwards and, as
Wilson and later James Callaghan saw even their modest devolution
proposals hampered by lack of a clear Commons majority, she scorned
their “hollow assembly” and upped the pressure for independence.

She tried once more to return to the Commons, in a by-election at
Hamilton in June 1978. The omens were good: this was her home town, and
the seat Winifred Ewing had captured in 1968 to launch the SNP as a
serious force. But a hiding from Labour in the local elections got her
campaign off on the wrong foot, the future defence secretary George
Robertson proved a tough opponent, and despite her warning that if she
lost there would never be a Scottish assembly, Labour doubled its
majority. That August she became Scottish director of Shelter.

Labour got its devolution scheme on to the Statute Book, and a
referendum was set for March 1979. Despite her reservations, Margo
Macdonald campaigned energetically for a “Yes” vote. And when the
campaign team was formed in 1978, she and Sillars — then leader of the
two-MP Scottish Labour Party — were thrown together.

She had separated from her husband two years before, and Sillars’s own
marriage had broken down. Both wanted an independent, socialist
Scotland, and their partnership was strengthened by the inconclusive
result of the referendum and Sillars’s loss of his seat in the 1979
election (triggered by the passage of the SNP’s consequent no-confidence
motion in Callaghan’s government).

Even before the referendum and the SNP’s heavy losses, she had founded
the 79 Group within the party, aimed at securing a more socialist
programme. This cost her the SNP vice-chairmanship at the 1979
conference, but gained a powerful recruit in Sillars, who joined the
party and the Group. They married in 1981.

For a time, Sillars and MacDonald looked to their supporters a “dream
ticket” who could lead the SNP Leftwards to victory. But the leadership
had had enough; it cracked the whip again, and Margo resigned from the
party, blaming Winifred Ewing. Sillars stayed in. He would himself win a
by-election at Govan in 1988; his wife did not campaign for him despite
her past triumph there, but was with him for the declaration of the
result.

Margo MacDonald was back in the SNP by the time Tony Blair’s government
delivered a Scottish Parliament. She stood for Edinburgh South in the
first Holyrood elections in 1999, but became an MSP by virtue of topping
the SNP’s list of candidates for the Lothians. She again enjoyed a bumpy
relationship with the party, especially after John Swinney replaced Alex
Salmond as its leader. Impatient with his moderation, she was expelled
in January 2003.

Re-elected as an Independent that year — she backed the Scottish
Socialist Party during the campaign — she joined a non-party group
comprising health and senior citizens’ campaigners and defectors from
Labour and the SNP. In the 2007 elections, only she among the
Independents survived.

Her greatest contribution as an MSP was to leak in 2004 a report on the
soaring cost of the new Parliament building. Discontent over the more
than 10-fold increase in the original estimate of £40 million came to a
head, and her action led to the First Minister, Jack McConnell, setting
up an inquiry which pilloried a number of the officials responsible.

In 1996 Margo MacDonald was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Six
years later she made her illness public, and demanded the legal right to
end her own life. She launched a campaign for assisted dying to be
legalised, and cooperated with a BBC documentary exploring both sides of
the argument.

She explained on the programme: “The possibility of having the worst
form of the disease at the end of life has made me think about
unpleasant things. I feel strongly that, in the event of losing my
dignity or being faced with the prospect of a painful or protracted
death, I should have the right to choose to curtail my own, and my
family’s, suffering.”

Margo Aitken was born on April 19 1943 . After attending Hamilton
Academy, she trained as a PE teacher at Dunfermline College. Inspired by
Winifred Ewing’s victory at Hamilton, she joined the SNP and in 1970
contested Paisley. In 1972, aged 29, she was elected a party
vice-chairman; months later she was an MP.

After her break with the SNP she reinvented herself as an
Edinburgh-based journalist. In 1985-86 she presented Radio 4’s Sunday
Colour Supplement and the consumer programme Face the Facts, and she
continued to broadcast frequently.

Margo MacDonald leaves two daughters from her marriage to Peter
MacDonald, whom she married in 1965 and divorced in 1980. Jim Sillars
also survives her.

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